Eden Project v0.6 beta

Editor for Black & White Landscapes

Author:			DragonBLK
EMail:			dragonblk@web.de
Website:		http://bweditors.bwcenter.com/

Requirements:

	OpenGL
	Directx8
	32MB Graphicscard
	128MB Systemmemory (i think)
	32bit Display settings (24bit should work)

	1024*768 resolution or better is recommended

Warranty

No Warranty!
The author takes no responsibility for any damage, directly or indirectly,
caused by the use (including possible misuse) of this software.
This software is provided as is!
And it is in it's beta status.

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DO NOT SAVE OVER YOUR ORIGINAL MAPS !!!!
SAVE A COPY INSTEAD !!!!
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Thanks and greetings

Great big thanks to DarkYoda for his kind advice
and his source code of LandViewer, which was used for loading
land files.

Thanks to Nick of bweditors.bwcenter.com for kindly
publishing Eden Project and making me a member of his
site.

Thanks to Thomas for kindly testing Eden Project on his 3dfx system


Suggestions

Any suggetions or help on bugs or solutions on problems are welcome.
(see history.txt)


You can find more help in the help files, although not
complete, information on the menus and dialogs (which do
the main functions) is provided.



What Eden Project is best at current status

Although being designed as a full editor,
Eden Project is best at modifying landscapes at the moment.
Since vital generation features are not implemented yet,
this seems obvious.
Editing from scratch is possible, but hard, since you
have to do all by hand.
When Eden Project grows up to version 1.0 fully scaled editing
features will be available and hopefully convenient too.
Since v0.6 editing features have grown and are more convenient.
But there's still much work to do.



!!!!! DRAFT !!!!!


Intro

Eden Project will be an editor for B&W landscapes, which can
be used for multiplayer (if both have the same map) or for
skirmish games.
Users will be able to edit any detail of these landscapes.
A random map generator will help to make maps from scratch.

The use can navigate in the 3D window through the world, via
left and right mouse button:

	- pressing left mouse button and holded when moving the mouse
	  the scene will rotate (always about the origin).
	- pressing right mouse button and holded when moving the mouse
	  the scene can be panned
	- pressing both buttons and moving the mouse will zoom 
	  the scene in or out

The block overview gives the user the possibillity to navigate directly
to a block, on which the view ist automatically centered. the 3D preview
shows the chosen block from above.

The cell overview will give away information about the cells of
the last clicked (chosen, see above) block. here all key editing
features will be evoked via a context menu. that includes
height editing, material, country selection.

The user will be able to assign textures to all existing blocks.
the lores textures will be calculated. each lores texture cover
an area auf 4x4 blocks.


General

A Black&White map consists of a number of blocks arranged in a 32x32 block field.
Up to 256 blocks are allowed, that means every (legal) map for b&w has at
most 25% land area in its block field. The position within the block field is
arbitrary.

Every block consists of 16x16 cells (every time) arranged in a 16x16 cell field.
That makes up 17x17 vertices of 3d information.
Each of that vertices, has a country style, an altitude and some flags, that define
some more properties.
With this it is possible to blend up to 4 country styles for one cell, with keeping
in mind, that vertical or horizontal neighbouring cells share 2 vertices and
diagonal neighbouring cells share one vertix. So neighbouring cells also
share countrystyles, altitudes and the flags on their common vertices.

A country style uses 2 materials for each altitude between 0 and 255, and
blends them together with a factor. Remember, that blending is done for
each altitude and, for each, 2 different materials may be selected.
Up to 16 of these country styles may be defined.

A material is a 16 bit color bitmap (RGBA5551).
They can be importet from normal bitmaps or from other land files.
The count of materials has practically no limit.

Each block will be assigned a noise and a bump map.
There is only one for each of these maps for the whole land map.
Assignment is automatically done.
A noise and a bump map can be freely chosen and are by their nature
8 bit greyscale bitmaps.
These types of bitmaps can be imported from bitmap files or other land files.
Be sure to load greyscale bitmaps, since color conversion may
be wrong.



How to use

Load a land file from your B&W directory. Use the overview with
a left mouse button click to navigate directly to a certain block.
Use the right button in the overview to edit block
(create, modify texture and delete).

To edit cells of a block you must select a block (see above) with
left mouse click and the select a cell in the cell overview by right
clicking it and use edit cell in the popup menu.
Use the dialog to change altitude and country theme.

Use the various command in the edit menu, to
change noise and bumpmaps,
materials, countrystyles and lores textures.

The most topics are explained in the helpfile.

Just experiment a litte bit.

-----------------------------------------
DO NOT SAVE OVER YOUR ORIGINAL MAPS !!!!
SAVE A COPY INSTEAD !!!!
-----------------------------------------
